We will fail. There are many in court who will be pleased at our failure, Colonel, because I am the only general in the czar’s army who is not of noble birth. But I shall not fall. You understand?”
“Fully,” said Fritch.
“A baroness is dead. Four men will be shot. Others will probably follow. You and I will battle to retain our positions, influence, and dignity, and the czar shall suffer yet another disappointment. Colonel, have you ever seen the golden wolf?”
“Never,” said Fritch, knowing the white collar of his uniform was turning dark from perspiration.
“Pity,” he said. “It is truly magnificent.”
In the distance, outside the window a volley of shots crackled. Neither man moved.
“Brief trial and swift justice,” said the general. He stood with a sigh. In Russian he said, “Let’s bring the bad news to the czar.”
TWO
Moscow, Russia, 1996
Katrina Ivanova hurried along the snow-covered Taras Shevchenko Embankment by the Moscow River. When she had finished her shift as an elevator operator in the Ukrainia Hotel, it had been just before midnight, which gave her half an hour to rush down the embankment, go under the Bordino Bridge, hurry through the garden in front of the Kiev railway station, and get to the Kievskaya metro station.
If she missed the last metro, she would either have to take a cab, which she could not afford, or go back to the hotel and ask Molka Lev to help her sneak into an empty room for the night. Katrina did not want to ask Molka Lev’s help. She did not want to ask anyone’s help. She had, in her thirty-two years, been less than pleased with the help offered to her by almost all men and most women. There was always a price to pay.
It was December and a light snow was falling on two days of old snow blown about by a bitter wind off the river. Katrina did not mind the cold or the snow. The colder it was, the less likely she was to be bothered by a drunk or a mugger or one of the new gangs of children who robbed, raped, and murdered. At this hour and in this weather she was unlikely to be disturbed.
A voice, an almost animal wail, rose in the wind in front of her. Katrina’s left boot struck a patch of ice under a thin spot of snow. She almost slipped but held her balance and managed to keep from falling.
Katrina was bundled tight in a lined cloth coat over a wool sweater with a high neck. A wool hat was pulled and tied to cover her ears and pink cheeks. Katrina Ivanova knew she was no beauty, but she was certainly not ugly. Her body was straight and solid if a bit heavy, and her skin was pink and clear. Her hair was as blond as it had been on her third birthday.
There was another sound ahead of her in the near darkness. This too was a voice, a deeper voice, wailing in the wind. Someone was ahead of her along the embankment, out of sight to her left. She would not be able to avoid it.
Maybe it was just the rustling of wind and snow in the trees, or a stray dog, or even two men arguing on the bridge still far ahead, their voices carrying far in the night.
The incidence of attacks on women had, since the end of the Soviet Union, risen so dramatically that the statistics published in the newspapers and given on television were no longer reliable. Rapes and murders were up two or three hundred percent. Gangs slaughtered one another on the street. Criminals, with guns visible under their jackets, were welcomed into the best hotels, including the Ukrainia.
Katrina was good at statistics. She loved statistics. There was certainty in them. Before her, through the haze of white, she could see the lights of Bolshaya Dorogomilovskaya Street, where the bridge crossed into the heart of the city.
She stood silently for an instant. No more voices in the wind ahead of her. Another fifty yards to go. No one in sight. The street lamps along the embankment were on, though they were dimmed by the swirl of snow. She could hurry and risk falling or she could go a bit slower. Katrina chose to hurry.
Suddenly in front of her through the whoosh of a gust of wind she heard four sharp, loud cracks like a steel cable striking a metal beam. Now she was sure. There was a moan and then three, four more loud cracks just ahead.
Katrina was frightened. There was no doubting that now, no lying to herself. About twenty-five yards ahead of her a hunched creature suddenly came up from the riverside. It looked like a bear. The creature looked around and saw Katrina.
Katrina, seeing something glitter in the creature’s hand, reached into her heavy red plastic purse and pulled out a Tokareve.762mm automatic. She had purchased it from a waiter in the hotel kitchen almost a year before when she had realized that the new Russia was a place of madness where statistics might be meaningless.
The bearlike figure began to raise its right arm, and Katrina could see that there was something in its hand. She dropped her purse gently in the snow, gripped the pistol in her wool-gloved hands, and leveled the weapon at the hulk pointing at her.
She fired first and the creature stood straight up. It was a man in a long coat and fur cap, and he definitely had a weapon in his hand. He staggered back. Surprised at the shot? Hit by a bullet? Then he fired. Katrina felt a sudden squeezing of her left arm, as if some great gorilla had grasped her in anger. Before she could fire again, the man ran in the direction of the bridge. Actually, it was more like an animal lope than a run, a strange lope that even at this moment seemed odd. Then he was gone into the darkness. She could hear him moving farther and farther away. Her arm hurt and she was frightened. She picked up her red purse and hurried toward the bridge, screaming for help. She hoped someone would hear her and come to help her, though she knew that few would be brave enough to respond to the midnight cries of a woman so far from the busy, lighted streets.
Katrina felt dizzy. Weapon still in her hand, she moved forward. She tried not to look down as she shuffled, but she could not resist and she knew she was bleeding. She could see the dark drops falling onto the snow in front of her, and she looked back to see their dim trail behind her. Katrina was lost in weeping panic as she hurried forward.
The footsteps in the snow where the man who shot her had come up from the embankment lured her toward the edge of the drop to the river. Lights from the other side of the river reflected off the water-bobbing jigsaw pieces-and she saw them. About ten feet down. There were four figures laid out in a line almost perfectly straight, as if they had arranged themselves and were about to make identical snow angels. But these figures did not move.
The light wasn’t good enough to see clearly, but Katrina knew. In her heart she knew that the four were dead, murdered by the creature who had shot her.
She trudged forward, too weak and frightened now to scream. He would leap out. She knew it. From behind a clump of snow-covered bushes or a stone block that marked the drop to the river. Something moved ahead. She fired again, not trying to hit anything but trying to keep the creature at bay.
A dog scuttled out from behind a stand of birch trees and fled in fear into the narrow parkway away from the river.
Katrina reached the street. She saw the frightened faces of three bundled old men. She passed out.
When she opened her eyes, a broad flat face appeared before her. She tried to bring it into focus. For an instant she thought it might be the man from the river, but something about the concern in his eyes and the warm feeling of a white room calmed her.
“We’re in a hospital,” the man said gently. “You have lost some blood but you will recover. Agda is being brought here in a police car. We found her name in your purse.”
Katrina nodded, her mouth painfully dry.
“Water,” she whispered.
The burly man poured a glass of water from a pitcher next to her bed.
“Just a sip or two,” said the man.
She nodded and did as she was told.
The man appeared to be in his fifties. He had dark hair just beginning to turn gray and the body of a small delivery truck. Under his coat he wore a yellow turtle-neck sweater that gave him the appearance of having no
